Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind.(Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)

We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East.(From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last.(Friends of Israel Initiative)

'Veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk may have been a little premature when he stated on 20 September:

"It’s over: the ‘peace process’, the ‘road map’, the ‘Oslo agreement’; the whole fandango is history.Personally, I think “Palestine” is a fantasy state, impossible to create now that the Israelis have stolen so much of the Arabs’ land for their colonial projects."

Fisk – in attributing this simplistic reason for signing Oslo’s death certificate – totally ignored the two offers made by Israel in 2001 and 2008 to cede its claims under the Mandate for Palestine and the United Nations Charter in more than 90% of the land won from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War.

The real reasons for Oslo’s demise are far deeper and more complex – revealing unbridgeable gaps between Israel and the PLO in reaching any agreement with regard to the following issues after failed on and off negotiations extending over the last 19 years:

Israel’s demands that

Israel be recognized as the Jewish State;

Any Palestinian State be demilitarized;

The final borders determined between it and a Palestinian State be secure and recognized boundaries as stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

The PLO’s demands that

Israel cede its claims in 100% of the territory won from Jordan in the 1967 War – with possibly equivalent land swaps to negate the removal of Jews from their homes in the West Bank and East Jerusalem;

Israel agree to accept millions of Palestinian Arabs – and their descendants – who became refugees as a result of the 1948 War

Fisk’s prediction has however been given added weight with the news this week that Hamas has agreed to join the PLO.

If this was to actually occur Israel’s Prime Minister made his government’s position very clear when Israel Radio reportedly quoted him as saying that if Hamas joins the Palestinian government, he would refuse to conduct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority.

Little comfort can be taken from the news that the Palestinian Authority might now be prepared to resume the long stalled peace negotiations with Israel if it released 100 prisoners. The parties can talk till the cows come in. But after 19 fruitless years – can sufficient pressure be put on both sides to come to an agreement on all their outstanding demands?

The Oslo Accords – and the Palestinian Authority – were born amid great enthusiasm in 1993.
The Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee – Francis Sejersted – expressed the following hopes of the Committee when awarding the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzchak Rabin:

"In the committee’s view, the so-called Oslo Accords concluded last year between Israel and the PLO meant that developments in the Middle East had taken a new turning. What was revolutionary about them was the de facto mutual recognition by the two parties. Not least by virtue of that recognition, the accords opened up a possible way out of the vicious circle of violence breeding violence, and towards peaceful co-existence."

The Nobel Committee’s optimism was misplaced.

Yasser Arafat had signed a side letter dated 9 September 1993 – nine days prior to signing the Declaration of Principles in which he assured Yitzchak Rabin:

"The signing of the Declaration of Principles marks a new era…I would like to confirm the following PLO commitments: The PLO recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist in peace and security. The PLO accepts United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The PLO commits itself…to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations…the PLO renounces the use of terrorism and other acts of violence and will assume responsibility over all PLO elements and personnel in order to assure their compliance, prevent violations and discipline violators…the PLO affirms that those articles of the Palestinian Covenant which deny Israel’s right to exist, and the provisions of the Covenant which are inconsistent with the commitments of this letter are now inoperative and no longer valid. Consequently, the PLO undertakes to submit to the Palestinian National Council for formal approval the necessary changes in regard to the Palestinian Covenant."

In breach of those commitments:-

The PLO Covenant still remains unchanged and unrevised in 2011.

The PLO has rejected the idea of Israel being entitled to secure and recognized borders as required under Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338

The PLO has unilaterally sought to gain statehood – not through negotiations – but by seeking recognition and admission to the United Nations and UNESCO.

The PLO is demanding pre-conditions for resuming the stalled negotiations with Israel.

Indeed one would be unable to find any improvement in the relationship between Israel and the PLO in 2011 to that which existed in 1994 when Mr Serjested declared:

The situation is still full of tension, marked by violence, killings, and insecurity, and stability is still far to seek

The PLO has been given its opportunity for the last 19 years to create a second Arab state in former Palestine – in addition to Jordan – but quite frankly has missed the boat.

Martin Sherman has summed up the current situation in these terms:

"For almost two decades after the Oslo Accords – despite massive financial aid and political support – they have produced nothing but a deeply divided entity, crippled by corruption and cronyism.

The result is a dysfunctional polity unable to conduct even the semblance of timely elections, and a puny economy, comprising a minuscule private sector and a bloated public one, totally unsustainable without massive infusions of foreign funds."

Sherman’s prescription to abandon Oslo and the two-state solution predicated by the Bush Roadmap is described by him as follows :

"Since the geography is immutable, the focus must be on the demography.

It is thus no more than “elementary” that the long-term preservation of the Jewish State must involve the relocation of the non-Israeli Arabs between the river and the sea. Any other option is self-deluded wishful thinking – or at least the burden of proof to show otherwise is on the proponents of such an option, especially in view of the post-Oslo/post-disengagement experiences."

I beg to differ.

Restoring the status quo at 4 June 1967 [i.e. the day before the Six Day War began] – as far as can now be done in direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan (and possibly Egypt) and within the framework of Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 and their existing peace treaties – will involve no-one – Arab or Jew – having to leave his current home unless he voluntarily wishes to do so.

This is not self-deluded wishful thinking – but It will need some pressure by the Quartet – America, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations – to be placed on Jordan and Egypt to sit down and negotiate with Israel if they refuse to do so voluntarily. [My emphasis]

The alternative -continued tension, violence, insecurity, killings and instability – cannot be allowed to deteriorate into an inevitable slide into open warfare.

The lines of these no doubt well-meaning but woefully misinformed, smug-seeming folk who appear in this video, airily renouncing the option of making aliya, have fallen in pleasant places, to use Biblical phraseology.

Would they be so quick to spurn Israel, I wonder, if they had had the misfortune to be born in a benighted land, or if the terror targetting identified by the NYPD ever escalated in the United States?

There's an excellent article by Giulio Meotti about the anti-Israel sentiments of certain UK bishops here
I can't help wondering whether those churchmen and church members who spend so much time scrutinising every move Israel makes with a view to jaundiced criticism concern themselves with the true and real persecution of their co-religionists around the world, as glimpsed in this video, which was made before the appalling atrocities at Christmas against Christians in Nigeria.

Wednesday, 28 December 2011

Here's a video that was uploaded to YouTube in October, but has not had as many hits as it deserves. It features an Arab Christian human rights activist, Majed El Shafie, now resident in Canada, who converted from Islam in his teens. In the course of a discussion about the hardship facing Christians in Gaza and the West Bank (particularly in the former, owing to fierce persection by Hamas of that minority of about 3,500 people there) Mr El Shafie notes that as soon as he fled from his native Egypt into Israel he "became a free man".

And here is a report, dating to 2007, regarding the seemingly inexorable dwindling of the Christian population on the West Bank. The video has a fleeting glimpse of a shepherd, so I recommend it particularly to the BBC's Jon Donnison and Yolande Knell, both of whom proved so fascinated by Palestinian shepherds this Christmas.

Of course, now that the Jewish Jesus is being so conveniently recast as a Palestinian by elements within the PA and their allies, and now that the presence of Palestinian Christians is proving an invaluable propaganda tool to the PA, their situation may have improved since the latter video was made. But, to quote from the original uploader's preface on YouTube to the first video (read it all!), citing Mr El Shafie:

'Bethlehem has become a "tourist zone" for the PA, he said. "Basically they don't want the Christians there but they want the Christian tourists to come and to take their money."'

Tuesday, 27 December 2011

So says Anthony Wedgwood Benn, the now aged former Labour Cabinet minister (in 1963, against all precedent, he insisted on renouncing the viscountcy he inherited from his father, in order to stay in the House of Commons) who prefers to be known as Tony Benn, befitting the leftist firebrand that he is, at the start of his address to "comrades" in the Stop The War Coalition at a meeting in London earlier this month. The fact is, of course, that Iran is one of the leading advocates of hostility to Israel and its president has threatened to wipe Israel from the face of the earth. No matter. To unreconstructed leftists, the Western powers especially Israel (mentioned several times in Benn's talk to his like-minded audience), can do no right, and their enemies can do no wrong. And Israel should presumably take no action to prevent itself becoming a burnt offering.

What a topsy turvy world such types inhabit: they talk darkly of "imperialist" covetousness towards Iranian oil resources, but the jihadist threat to the democratic West and liberal values, as well as radical Islam's oppression of women, dissidents, and minorities in the Middle East, seems to leave them unfazed. To say nothing of the Bomb in the hands of a madman who allegedly believes that strife and mayhem is the necessary prelude to the Coming of the Twelfth Imam.

But overlooked by me, a video giving Christmas Greetings from the IDF. It's great to note the cooperation behind the scenes, which belies the vilification of Israel indulged in at this season by sections of the leftist media.

Back in March 2009, when he was Roman Catholic Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols caused widespread consternation among his flock by permitting the chapel of the Roman Catholic Newman College in Birmingham to be used to celebrate the birth of the Islamic prophet Mohammed.

WroteDaily Telegraph blogger Damian Thompson at the time, having been told about the "disturbing event" that had "enormously upset devout Catholics" by a "furious priest":

"I'd never heard of this college before, but its website gives off an air of the grimmest political correctness.... The chapel is certainly used for the celebration of Mass, so it would indeed be outrageous if it were also used for the celebration of the birth of a man whom Christianity does not recognise as a prophet. (Don't get me started.) Can you imagine Muslims allowing a mosque or Muslim prayer room to be used for the celebration of the Eucharist?'

'The Archbishop of Birmingham, Vincent Nichols, has defended the use of a Catholic university college chapel for an event marking the birthday of Mohammed. Unbelieveable, I know. But here it is:

In a statement issued today, Thursday 12 March, Peter Jennings, Press Secretary to the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham, and the Archdiocese of Birmingham, said: "The chapel at Newman University College, Birmingham, was properly prepared for this event which consisted of two talks and a discussion of an interfaith nature."

Mr Jennings added: "Christian/Muslim dialogue is an important part of the Catholic Church's agenda. College authorities were fully aware of what was taking place."

I'm baffled. Last night, I reported on this disturbing event, organised by the college's Islamic Society and sanctioned by its politically correct chaplaincy team. I know that priests in Birmingham archdiocese are outraged by what happened. Archbishop Nichols could so easily have distanced himself from this, but he hasn't. If, against the odds, he is named as the next Archbishop of Westminster, his failure to speak out now will haunt him....'

Well, that same year Vincent Nichols did become Archbishop of Westminster, spiritual leader of all of Britain's Roman Catholics.

And at Midnight Mass this Christmas he addressed his packed congregation on the need to put their faith into action.

"We are to be freshly attentive to the needs of those who, like Jesus himself, are displaced and in discomfort," he isreportedas saying.

"We are to see more clearly all those things which disfigure our world, the presence of the sins of greed and arrogance, of self-centred ambition and manipulation of others, of the brutal lack of respect for human life in all its vulnerability....

[A] shadow falls particularly heavily on the town of Bethlehem tonight … We pray for them tonight."

The Archbishop focused on the plight of 50 Palestinian families in Beit Jala whose homes lie on the route of the security fence. And in a related BBC interview that an evidently delighted Al Beeb showed ad infinitum on its "New 24" thoroughout the day, he amplified his views with talk of Israeli appropriation of "territory" that had been that of the Palestinians for "700 years" ...

More poisoning of the public mind against Israel, and all deftly accomplished on Christmas Day. (The Archbishop's Christmas gift to Al Beeb, as it were!)

Sympathy for those in distress is of course what we would expect from a Christian priest. But the Archbishop's remarks, as reported, suggest that he has little if any sympathy or understanding for the suffering and dilemma of Israelis, and why a security fence is required.

Hitherto, as far as I'm aware, Britain's Roman Catholics as a body have been conspicuous by their absence from Israel-demonising circles within the churches. In all probability that will now change, and many practising Roman Catholics will join the ranks of anti-Israel activists.

Whether the many immigrant Poles who have swelled the present day Roman Catholic community in Britain have inherited the antisemitism that within living memory characterised much of Poland's population, and will prove particularly receptive to the call to action, remains, of course, to be seen.

Sunday, 25 December 2011

Lo and behold, what did the notoriously anti-Israel Guardian carry on the day preceding Christmas Eve twelve months ago?

Why, a gratuitous piece by Ana Carbajosa featuring the same Carlos Serras entitled "In Bethlehem, shepherds watching their flocks by night are a dying breed".
It was subtitled: "Jewish settlements, Israeli army checkpoints, closed military zones and the separation wall make them an increasing rarity" (I'm grateful to an anonymous reader for alerting me to this.)

The two articles are not the same (there's no plagiarism), but the remarkable similarity of theme and title shows as did this outrageous mocking of Judaism which both the Guardian and the BBC featured so closely as to defy the odds of coincidence, that the supposedly objective national broadcaster sings from the same carol sheet as the horrendously biased leftist Guardian. And it suggests that Al Beeb looks over Al Grauniad's shoulder to keep up with the score.

Update: Another specially-for-Christmas shepherd (with more Israel-bashing, and more dejudaising the origins of Christianity by featuring a cast of Palestinian "nativity characters" including, partisanly, a Wise Man in the person of Bethlehem's deputy mayor) from Al Beeb here

"New independent research shows that people across the Middle East have increasingly turned to the BBC during the Arab uprising with an unprecedented rise in audiences. Overall audiences to the BBC's Arabic services have climbed by more than 50% to a record high of 33.4 million adults weekly - up from 21.6 million before the Arab Spring.BBC Arabic TV's audience has risen to 24.5 million from 13.5 million - up by more than 80%. Weekly reach across Egypt, Iraq, Saudi, Jordan, Lebanon and Morocco has nearly doubled to a weekly reach of 18.4% from 9.8%.

The biggest increases were seen in Egypt, where the BBC Arabic TV audience quadrupled to a weekly reach of 16.2%, reaching 9.3 million people.

BBC Arabic TV also saw its weekly audience increase by almost a quarter in Iraq to a weekly reach of 26.6% (from 21.5%) reaching 4.9 million people. In addition, its weekly audience more than doubled in Jordan (weekly reach of 22.4% from 8.8%) and in Saudi Arabia (weekly reach of 24.6% from 12.2%).

These figures show that, in turbulent times, the BBC's aim to provide trusted news and impartial information is as valued as ever. [My emphasis] International audiences in the Middle East are turning to us for independent, dependable and unvarnished news that they can trust.

Behind the numbers, and in an increasingly competitive media market, this is proof that there will always be space for high-quality journalism that seeks to inform all, even-handedly. [My emphasis]

I am proud of our journalists and staff for never losing sight of the BBC's core purpose and hope our journalism makes a practical difference to people living through fragile times and sometimes frightening change."

"We do news well here at the World Service - those who listen vouch for it and those who don't still think we're "a good thing".

We've finessed impartiality down to a fine art.... We do not boost, we do not label, we do not "belong" and we certainly do not take sides. We pursue "neutrality" with a vengeance. So much so that it's the only thing we're not neutral about ..." [My emphasis]

That may or may not be true of the World Service. It certainly isn't true of the rest the BBC's news operations, particularly in coverage of the Middle East.

This Christmas Eve there's a slyly nasty little concoction on the BBC News website that can be interpreted as a deliberate attempt to aid and abet Christian antisemitism.

"While shepherds watched their flocks by night" is of course the opening line of a familiar Christmas carol. Shepherds are part and parcel of traditional nativity scenes and plays.

As we have seen in recent years, the Jewish Jesus is being transformed by anti-Israel propagandists into a "Palestinian".

Al Beeb hasn't given the shepherds a makeover of that sort, but it has taken the symbol of the (Judean) shepherd and updated it for political ends. Thus Al Beeb's Gaza and West Bank correspondent Jon Donnison, a young man but an old hand at shooting Bowen arrows in Israel's direction, has been to meet a Palestinian Arab shepherd, in a feature especially for Yuletide.

"Bethlehem's Shepherds Are A Dying Breed," screams Donnison's illustrated piece, which topped the list of features advertised on the BBC News home page earlier, so keen was Al Beeb to ensure a wide audience. The piece says in part

'The shepherds are forced to buy fodder for their sheep, but the prices are too high. He said Israeli security restrictions had made it harder for him and his sheep to roam.

"We can't move. If we want to go anywhere we have to get a permit."

Bethlehem is one of the Palestinian towns that has been most affected by the West Bank barrier, which Israelis call a "security fence" but Palestinians call an "apartheid wall"....

Israel says it is needed for security reasons, but it makes it very difficult for Palestinians to move freely.

Palestinian ID holders cannot pass it without Israeli permission.

And from Carlos Sarras's back garden you can see another obstacle.

"This is the settlement," he said, pointing his stick at the concrete perimeter wall of the Har Gilo settlement which backs on to his land....' Read the entire piece here

It's not a pressing news story.

It's a planted feature of invented topicality.

It can be seen as an attempt to use Christian imagery in order to enhance vitriol against Israel by touching a particular nerve in the public, and thus as kindling religious antisemitism.

It's hardly the first Yuletide kicking for Israel by Al Beeb that smacks of Christian antisemitism. One of the most blatant examples occurred some years ago when the egregious Orla Guerin presented a similarly gratuitous Israel-bashing sob story of a report from Bethlehem that revolved around a conveniently newborn Palestinian infant called by the Arabic name for Jesus.

Incidentally, on the BBC television news today Donnison blithely told viewers that the number of Palestinian Christians is betweeen 50,000 and 100,000. Compare that seemingly inflated figure to this information about their numbers (and status) in 2003.

No wonder that all many of Al Beeb's viewers want for Christmas is the release of the suppressed Balen Report. [Update: For more BBC Yuletide mischief at Israel's expense see my next post]

Friday, 23 December 2011

As reported at length by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), the PA youth magazine Zayzafouna, an educational and in many ways admirable publication, which however regularly demonises Jews and Israel (against whom it advocates Jihad and martyrdom, denying the right of Israel to exist) proved its antisemitic credentials yet again by publishing an essay by Palestinian girl who described her dream. Her essay ran in part:

"One hot day, I was very tired after a hard day... and suddenly I saw four white doors in front of me. I opened them in no particular order.
I opened the f irst door and saw a beautiful place full of flowers. I was surprised to see a man there. I asked him, 'Who are you?'
He said, 'I am Al-Khwarizmi.' [Ninth century Persian mathematician who lived in Baghdad, known for his contribution to the development of algebra....

I turned to the next door; there Hitler awaited me. I said, 'You're the one who killed the Jews?'
He [Hitler] said: 'Yes. I killed them so you would all know that they are a nation which spreads destruction all over the world. And what I ask of you is to be resilient and patient, concerning the suffering that Palestine is experiencing at their hands.'
I said [to Hitler]: 'Thanks for the advice.'

Following a complaint by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, UNESCO's Director-General has written to the Center as follows:

"UNESCO’s attention has been drawn to the February 2011 issue of the Palestinian children’s magazine Zayzafouna. This magazine is published by an NGO of the same name under the patronage of the Palestinian National Commission for UNESCO, which is the national body set up by the Palestinian Authority to facilitate its work with the Organization. The February issue features a story written by a 10-year-old girl [sic; in the PMW report she is described as in the tenth grade] in which Hitler is quoted by her as stating that he “killed [the Jews] so you would all know that they are a nation who wreak havoc on Earth”. While UNESCO upholds freedom of expression as an integral part of its mandate, the inclusion in this publication of a statement that may be interpreted as an apology of the holocaust is contrary to UNESCO’s constitutional mandate and values. It is totally unacceptable.

UNESCO supported the publication of three issues of the Zayzafouna Magazine six months after the February 2011 issue. The support was provided for these issues following agreement with the editorial board that they would focus on building greater appreciation amongst Palestinians for their heritage and culture. They were to open the way for positive dialogue aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Middle East conflict, and to fight against stereotypes that may be conducive to violence. It was UNESCO’s intention to foster a positive view of Palestinian heritage based on the values of tolerance and UNESCO’s mandate of building peace in the minds of men and women. This vision guides all of UNESCO’s activities, and we urge all partners to work in this direction.

UNESCO is shocked and dismayed by the content of the February issue, and has requested more detailed information and clarification from the editors of the magazine and to Palestinian Authority.
UNESCO strongly deplores and condemns the reproduction of such inflammatory statements in a magazine associated with UNESCO’s name and mission and will not provide any further support to the publication in question. [My emphasis]

The Organization, which is deeply committed to the development and promotion of education about the Holocaust, disassociates itself from any statement that is counter to its founding principles and goals of building tolerance in the full respect for human rights and human dignity."

Sadly, for some NGOs Christmas is a time for stealing in order to advance their own Israel-delegitimising ends.

Below is a press release from Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, entitled "The NGOs That Stole Christmas: Church Groups Manipulate Christmas Spirit To Delegitimize Israel and Promote BDS":

'The Christmas season is being exploited by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to advance anti-peace agendas and to delegitimize Israel.... By manipulating traditional Christmas songs, images, and messages, NGOs such as Sabeel,War on Want (UK), Amos Trust, and Adalah-NY continue to demonize Israel with crude, antisemitic rhetoric.

"These NGOs have hijacked Christmas to promote their extremely divisive boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) and demonization campaigns," says Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "Manipulating religious symbols and images in this manner is deeply offensive, and clearly does not foster an environment of coexistence among Israelis and Palestinians. These NGOs are pursuing hate-filled agendas."

Friends of Sabeel - Detroit is selling Christmas cards as a "fundraiser in support of Friend of Sabeel - North America," one of which implies the destruction of the Jewish state by depicting a map of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza as one territory filled in with the phrase "The Empire will not last!"

Adalah-NY held its annual "Anti-Apartheid Holiday Caroling" on December 17, 2011 in front of a New York jewelry store owned by Israeli businessman Lev Leviev. The protest is part of Adalah-NY's campaign targeting Leviev because he is an Israeli, and they invited activists to sing awkward and offensive versions of traditional holiday songs. This year, the event was held in conjunction with Code Pink, whose Stolen Beauty campaign targets the Israeli company Ahava. In their lyrics, the NGOs use the "Ethnic cleansing and apartheid" blood libels, and chanted "Selling beauty creams, / Blood mixed in with mud"; other inflammatory lyrics include "That beauty cream you bought her / Makes her soul disappear."

UK-based Amos Trust is advertising its annualBethlehem Pack, "a resource to help churches talk about the current situation in Bethlehem at carol services and Christmas events." Exploiting charged theological images to attack Israel, this text proclaims: "If Jesus was born today in Bethlehem, the Wise Men would spend several hours queuing to enter the town" and "If Jesus was born today in Bethlehem, much of the shepherds' fields would have been confiscated for illegal Israeli settlements."

"Linking the suffering of Palestinians to Christian themes revives traditional and deep seated antisemitic theology," Steinberg adds. "By employing these tactics, and grossly misrepresenting a complicated conflict, these NGOs are making peace more difficult to achieve."'

Read here NGO Monitor's full report on the NGOs that Stole Christmas.
And see my post on this topic last year.
(The cartoon at the top is not from an NGO, but from Palestine Solidarity Campaign material about a year ago.)

Thursday, 22 December 2011

On his blog Israel Matsav has posted a video (hat tip: reader Shirlee) of an Arab vandal caught red-handed uprooting and destroying a tombstone in the Jewish cemetery on Har HaZeitim, the Mount of Olives, the most ancient burial ground in the world that is still in use, and of course one in which scores of renowned sages repose. (The tomb of the prophet Zachariah can be seen in this photograph, right foreground.) As Israel Matsav's blog notes, the vandal (who received a three-month gaol sentence) had been paid to carry out the task of desecration, and the incident is by no means isolated; even mourners are sometimes physically attacked.

Hooliganism on Har HaZeitim was rampant during the Jordanian occupation of the Old City from 1948-67. And what's more, it was state-sponsored.

In 1954 the Israeli Government wrote to the then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, telling him that it had (to quote the London-based Jewish Chronicle, 16 July 1954, which carried a photo of damaged tombstones):

"[C]onclusive proof of the extent to which the destruction and spoilation of the cemetery proceeded.

More than half of its area had been stripped of all signs of its consecrated character... Tombstones had been completely destroyed or removed and some part of the grounds showed marks of ploughing. Some of the missing stones are said to have been used in the construction of a cinema in Jericho.

Jews from at least 28 countries, including scores of sages and holy men, lie buried in this ancient and historic cemetery..."

With the liberation of the Old City from Jordanian rule in June 1967, the full extent of the abuse suffered by the cemetery became apparent.

The Jewish Chronicle (21 July 1967) published a photo of Jewish tombstones from the Mount of Olives that had been taken and broken by the Jordanians in order to build a wall in a military camp.

And on 4 August 1967 the paper printed a letter from Mordechai Noy of Jerusalem. It went as follows:

'It seems to me that your readers are not sufficiently informed on the extent of the desecration of Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives by the Jordanians who held the territory between 1948 and 1967.

As vice-president of the Kehilloth Yerushalayim Burial Society, which serves about 50 per cent of the city's population, I investigated the situation of our cemetery on the Mount, opposite the Temple Mount.

Among about 1,500 graves no more than 30 per cent can be said to have remained undamaged, mostly because their stone or marble monuments were too heavy to remove.

In all other cases the tombstones were either totally destroyed or stolen. In many cases even the masonry between the concrete foundation and the tombstones was removed or stolen.

A certain number of the graves were entirely destroyed when the Jordanians built a broad "autostrada" cutting our cemetery in two parts.

This road caused the destruction of many more graves on the Jewish cemeteries on the Mount.

We are now engaged in saving what is still to be saved. Fortunately we have exact maps and registers enabling us to trace each grave still missing, and we are now marking each grave and informing the family of the exact position.

It is clear that by the desecration of these "holy places" the Jordanian authorities permitted acts of vandalism abhorrent to all civilised peoples."

Tuesday, 20 December 2011

In this video Yossi Klein Halevi of the David Project talks interestingly of the delegitimisation movement against Israel, and how delegitimisation should be countered by Zionists of the Left (who, he says, fail to take delegitimisation seriously) and of the Right.

He begins by talking of "a growing sense that many of us feel in Israel ... of growing siege," as terrorist enclaves (clients of Iran) take root on Israel's borders contrary to the past strategic policy of both Labor and Likud which has effectively collapsed. At the same time, there is an increased sense of vulnerability on Israel's southern border, with Egypt, he notes.

Beyond that "inner circle of siege" is the "outer circle" of siege represented by a nuclear Iran and its newfound ally Turkey. "It appears that our bag of tricks is empty" and that it's likely that only military confrontation will prevent a nuclear Iran. He also talks of the loneliness of Israelis and others who are wary of the so-called "Arab Spring" in view of the Islamism and antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric it has thrown up.

He cannot recall a period since May 1967 in which such "existential dread" has pervaded Israel, which nevertheless is far stronger than it was back then, except in one respect: the assault on Israel's legitmacy around the word, which he identifies as the biggest of all threats facing the Jewish people.

Debating the consequences of 1948 and denying the right of Israel to define itself as a Jewish State (a denial widespread throughout the Arab World) represent the essence of the delegitimisation of Israel and of antisemitism, he explains...

Jewish history in the region is being treated as myth, and all Palestinian groups, religious or secular, he laments, deny the peoplehood of the Jews,despite the fact that most Israelis have, however reluctantly, accepted the peoplehood of the Arabs of Palestine, and that denial is the obstacle to peace.

The aim of the delegitimisation movement in the West is to portray the return to Zion as "sinister" - a form of colonialism - and a "powerful motif" running through the delegitimisation movement in the West is to trivialise and misuse the Holocaust ...

"This is a different country from the one that saved me," laments a refugee from Nazism who found sanctuary in Sweden. The video, uploaded by IsraelWithTheWest almost two months ago, and no doubt seen on other blogs though missed by me, features an item on "Russia Today" about antisemitism in the Swedish city of Malmo, which has a large Muslim population.

First, a video I stumbled across just now. This raucous song is offset by some fine views of Israel. Judging by those views, the makers/uploaders appear to be telling us that "Free Palestine" will mean the end of Israel.

And here's a five-minute clip from a very recent interview that Mark Regev gave to the Israel Broadcasting Authority's Channel 33:

Monday, 19 December 2011

At left is a 2011 Christmas card from one of those anti-Israel NGOs that (as I mentioned in a post last year) push the notion that Jesus was a Palestinian. The card was pinkish last year; in its current guise it's green, and well it might be, since it's the green who are destined to be taken in.

This offensive characterisation of Jesus the Jew from Judea has caught on in Israel-demonising circles that really should know better, one Palestine Solidarity Campaign branch (composed of women of a certain age and which has concocted a petition calling on David Cameron to apologise for the Balfour Declaration), for example, tweeting unashamedly in November:

"Think PALESTINE (Christ came from there) for Christmas!"

In the battle for hearts and minds history is a vital tool, as the people formerly content to be known as Arabs know all too well.

As Avi Goldreich has pointed out, the Latin-language book Palestina (1699) by Dutch orientalist Adriaan Relandi (1679-1718), who visited Eretz Yisrael a few years earlier, found that:

'1. Not one settlement in the Land of Israel has a name that is of Arabic origin.... In fact, till today, except to Ramlah, not one Arabic settlement has an original Arabic name. Till today, most of the settlements names are of Hebrew or Greek origin, the names distorted to senseless Arabic names. There is no meaning in Arabic to names such as Acco (Acre), Haifa, Jaffa, Nablus, Gaza, or Jenin and towns named Ramallah, El Halil and El-Kuds (Jerusalem) lack historical roots or Arabic philology. In 1696, the year Relandi toured the land, Ramallah, for instance, was called Bet'allah (From the Hebrew name Beit El) and Hebron was called Hebron (Hevron) and the Arabs called Mearat HaMachpelah El Chalil, their name for the Forefather Abraham.

2. Most of the land was empty, desolate, and the inhabitants few in number and mostly concentrate in the towns Jerusalem, Acco, Tzfat, Jaffa, Tiberius and Gaza. Most of the inhabitants were Jews and the rest Christians. There were few Muslims, mostly nomad Bedouins. Nablus, known as Shchem, was exceptional, where approximately 120 people, members of the Muslim Natsha family and approximately 70 Shomronites, lived.

In the Galilee capital, Nazareth, lived approximately 700 Christians and in Jerusalem approximately 5000 people, mostly Jews and some Christians.

The interesting part was that Relandi mentioned the Muslims as nomad Bedouins who arrived in the area as construction and agriculture labor reinforcement, seasonal workers.

In Gaza for example, lived approximately 550 people, fifty percent Jews and the rest mostly Christians. The Jews grew and worked in their flourishing vineyards, olive tree orchards and wheat fields (remember Gush Katif?) and the Christians worked in commerce and transportation of produce and goods. Tiberius and Tzfat were mostly Jewish and except of mentioning fishermen fishing in Lake Kinneret -- the Lake of Galilee -- a traditional Tiberius occupation, there is no mention of their occupations. A town like Um el-Phahem was a village where ten families, approximately fifty people in total, all Christian, lived and there was also a small Maronite church in the village (The Shehadah family).

3. The book totally contradicts any post-modern theory claiming a "Palestinian heritage," or Palestinian nation. The book strengthens the connection, relevance, pertinence, kinship of the Land of Israel to the Jews and the absolute lack of belonging to the Arabs, who robbed the Latin name Palestina and took it as their own.... No names of towns, no culture, no art, no history, and no evidence of Arabic rule; only huge robbery, pillaging and looting; stealing the Jews' holiest place, robbing the Jews of their Promised Land. Lately, under the auspices of all kind of post modern Israelis -- also hijacking and robbing us of our Jewish history.'

Yet, as Israel Matsav observes, 'Ironically, outrageously, UNESCO has just supported the “Palestinian” right to bar Jews from placing the Machpelah on Israel's Heritage Site list, the place where our Jewish ancestors are buried.' (Hat tip: reader Shirlee)

A map of Eretz Yisrael in the Amsterdam Haggadah published in 1695

In his latest article (entitled "Palestine – Time To Tell The Truth") via the antipodean J-Wire service, the Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer also pursues the theme of history – and invented history.

Writes David Singer:

'Republican front runner for next President of the United States – Newt Gingrich – has done himself and his campaign great credit in branding the Palestinians as an invented nation.Gingrich stirred up a real hornets’ nest when he said in an interview with the Jewish Television Network:

"Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman empire.

I think that we’ve had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it’s tragic."

Gingrich has subsequently refused to back down and has now gone even further in stating:

"The fact is, the Palestinian claim to a right of return is based on a historically false story. Somebody oughta have the courage to go all the way back to the 1921 League of Nations mandate for a Jewish homeland, point out the context in which Israel came into existence, and Palestinian did not become a common term until after 1977. This is a propaganda war in which our side refuses to engage. And we refuse to tell the truth when the other side lies. And you’re not gonna win the long run if you’re afraid to stand firm and stand for the truth.

This propaganda war has been successfully waged by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) since its creation by the KGB in 1964."

Ion Mihai Pacepa, former acting chief of Communist Romania’s espionage service in an interview with Front Page Magazine on 1 March 2004 spilt the beans on the PLO and its connection to the Soviet regime when he said:

"The PLO was dreamt up by the KGB, which had a penchant for “liberation” organizations. There was the National Liberation Army of Bolivia, created by the KGB in 1964 with help from Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Then there was the National Liberation Army of Colombia, created by the KGB in 1965 with help from Fidel Castro, which was soon deeply involved in kidnappings, hijackings, bombings and guerrilla warfare. In later years the KGB also created the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which carried out numerous bombing attacks on the 'Palestinian territories' occupied by Israel, and the “Secret Army for Liberation of Armenia,” created by the KGB in 1975, which organized numerous bombing attacks against US airline offices in Western Europe."

In 1964 the first PLO Council, consisting of 422 Palestinian representatives handpicked by the KGB, approved the Palestinian National Charter—a document that had been drafted in Moscow.

The language used in the 1964 version of the PLO Charter was slick – designed to establish that “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians”. Who could possibly disagree with that motherhood statement – especially if it was repeated ad nauseum?

Hijacker Leila Khaled

The problem was that the Charter’s definition of "Palestinians" included only the Arab residents of former Palestine and a limited number of Jews.

Article 6. The Palestinians are those Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled. Every child who was born to a Palestinian parent after this date whether in Palestine or outside is a Palestinian.

Article 7. Jews of Palestinian origin are considered Palestinians if they are willing to live peacefully and loyally in Palestine.

It didn’t take long for this gratuitous acceptance of some Jews to virtually vanish when the 1968 edition of the Charter declared:

"The Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the Zionist invasion will be considered Palestinians."

Non-Arab Christians and non-believer residents of former Palestine were totally rejected as being Palestinians. Their descendants as well as the descendants of any of the Jews who had lived in Palestine since the beginning of the Zionist invasion were persona non grata in their homeland of their birth..

If that seems like racism,smells like racism and is still contained in the PLO Charter today – then it is racism.

Article 24 in the 1964 version of the Charter also excluded any claim by the Palestinians to the West Bank and Gaza – and by inference to Jordan – which together had comprised about 80% of former Palestine

This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area.

This article was subsequently deleted from the Charter following Jordan’s loss of the West Bank and Egypt’s loss of Gaza in the Six Day War in 1967.

The significance of that deletion – and indeed the invention of the Palestinians in 1964 – was underscored when the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Zuhair Mohsen told the Dutch newspaper Trouw in 1977:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Total rejection of international law by the Palestinians was also part and parcel of this invented nation – since the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1946 had already recognized the legitimate right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Palestine whilst the United Nations had admitted Israel as a member on 11 May 1949.

Article 17 of the 1964 Charter expressed this view in the following manner:

"The Partitioning of Palestine in 1947 and the establishment of Israel are illegal and false regardless of the loss of time, because they were contrary to the wish of the Palestine people and its natural right to its homeland, and in violation of the basic principles embodied in the charter of the United Nations, foremost among which is the right to self-determination."

By 1968 Article 17 had been excised and replaced by Article 20 which declared:

"The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism, being a religion, is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own; they are citizens of the states to which they belong."

Gingrich’s statements are indeed the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The PLO has seen its propaganda campaign succeed to a stage where “Palestine” has been admitted as a member “state” of UNESCO in apparent contravention of the UNESCO Constitution, the Montevideo Convention and customary international law.

The PLO’s stated intention of liberating and replacing both Israel and Jordan in the United Nations as its192nd member still remains unrevoked in the PLO Charter.

Seventeen years of fruitless PLO negotiations with Israel have now been virtually abandoned – with the two-state solution envisaged by the Oslo Accords and advocated by President Bush in his Roadmap now in its death throes.

Gingrich’s message to the PLO is clear – return to the negotiating table and hammer out a deal with Israel or face the consequences if this has not happened and Gingrich becomes America’s next president.

Sunday, 18 December 2011

A mischievous Christian anti-Zionist document entitled theBethlehem Call (which among other things commits itself unequivocally to supporting the right of return for the so-called refugees) has just been issued by over 60 participants from 15 countries who from 4-10 December joined Palestinians in the Kairos for Global Justice Encounter/Conference in Bethlehem.
In their document they say, inter alia:

'Israel regards itself to be above the law and is treated as exempt from international law. This status provides the Israeli government the freedom to occupy Palestine with impunity. As witnessed with our own eyes, the treacherous conditions imposed by the Israeli occupation on Palestinians and their land have reached a level of almost unimaginable and sophisticated criminality.

This includes the slow yet deliberate and systematic ethnic cleansing and the geo-cide of Palestinians and Palestine as well as the strangling of the Palestinian economy. The brutality in the “violence of silence” internationally provides an almost impenetrable shield for the Israeli government to implement its evil designs [my emphasis] in blatant disregard for human rights and international law. Silence is an opinion. Inaction is an action. We witness decidedly spineless cowardice in failure to resist the Israeli government by the majority of governments, political parties, media outlets, businesses, most of organized religion -- including Christianity -- and the silence of prophets worldwide. This makes us accomplices in crimes against humanity, such as the crimes of apartheid and persecution as described in international law....

The deligitimization and criminalization of the Israeli government and its local and international support base is gaining unstoppable momentum. The existence of international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns and other forms of non-violent resistance is an established fact. The government and state of Israel is now regarded as an apartheid regime in terms of international law, with particular reference to the UN Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid and the Rome Statutes of the International Criminal Court.....'

Furthermore:

'The time for words and diplomatic niceties, that obscure the reality, are over. We affirm the churches’ commitment to and contributions for decisive action since the Amman Call as well as in the creation and impact of the Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum (PIEF). Nevertheless,we will strengthen and increase our advocacy initiatives. Therefore, we:

• Reject the silence of the church, lest we be accomplices in crimes against humanity, such as those of apartheid and persecution. It is imperative to speak up and cry with the oppressed in demanding justice.

• Refuse to be coerced into accepting financial assistance from any church or organisation that supports the Occupation.

• Challenge any church which, either directly or indirectly, invests in companies which support the occupation. As congregants of a church, we will be alert towards church policies and challenge unethical financial investment and spending practices.

• Call the Israeli occupation of Palestine a crime and sin. We reject any theological or political justification for the Occupation. We regard such theologies as defying the core of the Gospel.

• Reject any argument aimed at convincing Palestinians and the international community that the problems are caused by Muslims rather than the Occupation.[My emphasis]

• Demand that churches take bold and courageous positions for justice against injustice. We are appalled at the spiritual and institutional cowardice that refuses to take an unequivocal stand for justice. Equally, victims and perpetrators cannot be put on equal footing in efforts to create illusions of balance.

• Confirm our obligation to resist the Occupation in faith, hope and love. We reject calls to cease advocating and practising BDS or any other form of non-violent civil resistance that will end the Occupation.'

Saturday, 17 December 2011

Yesterday, the following full-page advertisement by the Emergency Committee for Israel appeared in the New York Times, the Miami Herald, the Palm Beach Post, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and Variety. ECI chair William Kristol said: “The Obama administration has been using Israel as a punching bag. The pro-Israel wing of the pro-Israel community is punching back.

Friday, 16 December 2011

I was looking at a one of those tourist-tempting travelogues on digital television, and the Maldives, in the Indian Ocean, looked just the place for a getaway.

Indeed, I felt sorry for the Maldive tourist industry, because I recalled that some time ago a western couple's wedding ceremony there was turned into a shambles by pranksters, and what with the bad publicity over that, and a recent fatal shark attack or two, I felt this apparent paradise could do with a boost.

But then I saw this:

And this:

That from a country where, according to Wikipedia:

'Islam is the official religion ... Maldives is a 99.41% Muslim country although open practice of all other religions is forbidden and such actions are liable to prosecution. Article 2 of the revised constitution says that the republic "is based on the principles of Islam." Article nine says that "a non-Muslim may not become a citizen"; Article ten says that "no law contrary to any principle of Islam can be applied" Article nineteen states that "citizens are free to participate in or carry out any activity that is not expressly prohibited by sharia or by the law."

The requirement to adhere to aparticular religion and prohibition of public worship following other religions is contrary to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to which Maldives has recently become party[and was addressed in Maldives' reservation in adhering to the Covenant claiming that "The application of the principles set out in Article 18 of the Covenant shall be without prejudice to the Constitution of the Republic of the Maldives."

This panel discussion chaired by Ami Eden, editor-in-chief of the JTA, revolves around the issue of American Jewish youth and their relationship with Israel. As with all such discussions, the views expressed will not be to everyone's taste.

From Shalom TV, the video features an interview at the end by Rabbi Mark Golub with a confused University of Maryland student who'd spoken from the audience about the conflict between what her Israeli parents told her about Israel and what she's since been told on campus.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center has published its list of the top anti-Israel/antisemitic slurs of the past year that have been made by mainstream individuals (as opposed to members of terrorist groups, the lunatic fringe, and the Iranian Government).

As the Center states, the list should serve as "a wake-up call" to people who assume that such ravings are the exclusive preserve of "neo-Nazis and crackpots".

Quibbles are no doubt inevitable, and I can't help thinking that the Center has perhaps placed John Galliano and Lars Von Trier (both of whom have apologised) way too high, and Hermann Dierkes (seen and heard in the following video uploaded in 2010) way too low.

1. “I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him and the birthplace of Jesus Christ peace be upon him, to speak on behalf of the Palestinian people…”
-Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas at his UN General Assembly address, September 23, 2011 (omitting any reference to the Jewish people’s connection to the Holy Land.)

2. “I would like to see accurate statistics of how many Israelis have been killed by the bombs thrown by Palestinians or with the rockets that were launched by them?…. we know that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were killed… neither Turkey nor the Muslims in the region have exerted such cruelty on Israel… Israel is inexplicably cruel, against innocent Palestinians, hiding behind the Nazi Holocaust and seeking victimhood....Everybody knows what Israel is about.”
-Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during CNN Interview with Fareed Zakaria, September 25, 2011

3. “Everything that happens today in the world has to do with the Zionists… American Jews are behind the world economic crisis that has hit Greece also.”
-Zorba The Greek composer, Mikis Theodorakis, winner of the International Music Council-UNESCO International Music Prize, also told Greek TV that he was “anti-Israel and anti-Semitic,” February 15, 2011

4. “I love Hitler…People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be f****** gassed.”
– Christian Dior fashion designer John Galliano was fired and later convicted in a French court for his anti-Semitic rants screamed at Jews in a Paris bar.

5. “I understand Hitler... He’s not what you would call a good guy, but yeah, I understand much about him and I sympathize with him a little bit. But come on, I’m not for the Second World War, and I’m not against Jews... I am of course, very much for Jews. No, not too much, because Israel is a pain in the ass… I’m very much for Speer. Albert Speer [Hitler’s Architect]… He was also maybe one of God’s best children… Okay, I’m a Nazi.”
-Director Lars Von Trier was thrown out of the Cannes Film Festival after this rant,
May 18, 2011.

6. “[Jews] want that sucker of Syrian blood to remain and continue to prey and suck blood. They not only want their security, but also to enjoy the sight of Syrian blood being spilled…. Asking myself why Jewish support of Bashar [Assad] increased after they saw the rivers of Syrian blood this mass-murderer spilled in Syrian towns, an old image leapt to my mind, of Jews bleeding people and using their blood to prepare matzas. Logic does not accept this, but the facts prove it.”
–Syrian writer Osama Al-Malouhi, an opponent of President Bashar Assad, posted on an opposition website, October 26, 2011, The Middle East Media Research Institute.

7. “Not all the Jews in the world are evil….The ratio is 60-40. Sixty percent are evil to varying degrees, all the way to a level that words cannot describe, while 40 percent are not evil.”
–Tawfiq Okasha, a presidential candidate in post-Mubarak Egypt added that among the 40% of ‘non-evil’ Jews there is only one in a million who is blameless, Al-Faraeen TV, October 31, 2011.

8. “The source that finances and incites all these international organizations… especially in the Arab world… are led by a single, evil organization, known as Zionism. It is behind all these movements, all these civil wars, and all these evils… Jesus Christ healed the sick among the Jews… and resurrected their dead. [How did they repay him?] “They strived to crucify him until he died…”
“Do the people of the opposition [today]… belong to Christianity or to Islam? No. They are deeply rooted in Judaism and in Zionism… Any intelligent person who reads The Protocols of the Elders of Zion will see the extent of its influence on the politics of our region and the world.”
–George Saliba, Bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church in Lebanon, Al-Dunya TV, July 24, 2011. The Middle East Media Research Institute

9. “Oppose the moral blackmail of the so-called Holocaust! [“Arbeit macht Frei!”] Truth makes free!”
– Hermann Dierkes, leader of the Left Party in Duisburg, Germany, April 2011.
(Dierkes posted a flyer on the website with a swatiska morphing into a Star of David and called for a boycott of Israeli products, labelling Israel a “rogue state” and a “warmonger.”)

10. “The state of Israel is an illegal, genocidal place… to equate Judaism with the State of Israel is to equate Christianity with [rapper] Flavor Flav.”
– Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a speech to thousands of people, June 14, 2011, Baltimore, Maryland.

There's a new article in an apparently influential Norwegian academic journal that makes some bizarre claims about the linkages of the mass murderer Breivik. Here's the English-language abstract:

'The terrorist attacks in Norway on 22 July 2011 were first described as an al-Qaeda operation. When Anders Behring Breivik was arrested and we were able to look at his video and read his manifesto, it became clear that he was inspired by Jewish-Christian anti-jihadist writers, the very individuals that had pointed to al-Qaeda in the first place. Some critics argued that Breivik had been used by Israeli forces with an interest in changing Norway’s policy towards Palestine, as if Breivik had copied the Israeli bombing of the British headquarters in Jerusalem in 1946, on the very anniversary of that attack. However, inspiration and interests are not enough. One also has to look at Breivik’s contacts that supposedly financed him and initiated him into his crusading «Knights Templar» order. Breivik himself points to Serbian crusaders, while others points to an East-European military mafia. The two converge, however, into one network that is surprisingly close to Saudi and Chechen intelligence and to the very Islamists that Breivik detests, as though Breivik’s Knights Templar were the mirror image of al-Qaeda.'

Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Regarding the roots of Muslim antisemitism and their implications for Israel, the Saudis can teach Obama's man in Brussels a fact or two, as this passage from a by no means unique Saudi textbook indicates:

"Whoever studies the nature of the conflict between the Muslims and the Jews understands an important fact, [namely that] this is a religious conflict, not a dispute about politics or nationality, or a conflict between races or tribes, or a fight over land or country, as some describe it ... [T]hroughout Islamic history, the Jews have striven to destroy the [Islamic] religion and spread fitna [chaos] among the Muslims."

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, made a gung-ho speech in June, which left no doubt as to his iron-clad support for Israel, his recognition of the evil it's threatened by, whether in the shape of Hamas or of Iran, and the hypocrisy which characterises its foes in the United Nations. Indeed, he went so far as to promise that within hours of becoming the next occupant of the Oval Office, he would order the American Embassy to remove to Jerusalem.

Last week, of course, he stirred controversy when he described the Palestinians are "an invented people".

But in that assertion Newt Gingrich, who, incidentally, has a PhD in history, is absolutely right, and as the following clip shows he is able to deal deftly with persons seemingly not as familiar with the facts as he is.

Newt Gingrich has proved himself to be on the side of history. The question is, of course: will history prove to be on his side?

Terror Groups Eyeing Israel's Destruction from inside NGOs

Two stalwarts go sleuthing:

For their findings cliick on image

"The research suggests that antisemitism is the fuel that primes the PSC engine"

To read the research report click on image

'For as long as these antisemites wrap themselves up in the Palestinian flag, too many people are willing to turn a blind eye. Only against Jews is this type of racism openly tolerated. It is flourishing in schools, colleges, universities, unions and in city councils. In fact, so rampant is the disease now, in some settings you can be ostracised if you do not partake in the frenzy yourself. Bashing Jews has becomes a trendy position for the ignorant social justice warrior. "Palestinianism" is a viral "ponzi scheme" and as it spreads, it carries antisemitism in the undergrowth.' David Collier (2017)

'This new rise in antisemitism, which I had thought long dead, was not shaven-headed white imbeciles from the far right. It was Muslims, a large chunk of it.... Suddenly I grasped that the British far left didn’t want people to know about antisemitism because it pointed the finger at people they really, really liked. From that moment on, it all fell into place.... Time and again the same tropes emerged, the same sort of stuff that Streicher and Goebbels would have commended – and uttered.... And from that a whole bunch of other stuff emerged: the old blood libel business (a favourite of the repulsive Jenny Tonge).... Nice, avuncular, Jeremy Corbyn, with his peace badges, happily laying a wreath at the graveside of Palestinian terrorists who murdered innocent Jewish athletes, oh, and much much more.... It is the same antisemitism, exactly the same: the obsession with Israel to the exclusion of everything else, the conspiracy theory paranoias, the derangement.... Here’s the test – if you cannot see the flagrant racism in the BDS movement, and if you are obsessed with the perfidy of the Middle East’s only democracy to the exclusion of all else, you are an antisemite. That means a good proportion of the Labour Party, including the leader, and almost all of Momentum: no brown shirts, no marching bands, but the same old filth, dressed in the clothes of a polytechnic geography lecturer.'Rod Liddle (2018)

Pro-Israel Down Under

Shalom and Welcome to my blog!I'm the little Aussie blogger who took the screenshot and broke the story of Stephen Sizer's notorious 9/11 post, and I've since broken two other stories that subsequently went viral, one Australia-wide and one, thanks to the sterling work of two other bloggers, worldwide. I remain very surprised and very honoured to have been co-winner, Best Pro-Israel Blog, Hasby Awards, 2013Please "Like" me on Facebook; my Facebook page ishere

'In a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel ... is different.... Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, only Israel's Arab citizens enjoy real democratic rights.... Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East. Israel is what is right about the Middle East.' Bibi Netanyahu (20 Iyar 5771; 24 May 2011)Scroll to end for more quotations

Tired of anti-Balfour agitprop?

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Balfour and Beyond

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Try this for Sizer

Sizer 101. Click image for link

'Before the June 1967 Six Day War, there were no such things as "settlements". Palestinians were trying to destroy and displace Israel anyhow. The core problem is not, and never was, "settlements," but the right of Israel (or any non-Muslim nation) to exist inside any borders in that part of the world.If you take a stand that is based on a lie, then that stand cannot succeed. If you try to oppose antisemitism but pretend it is the same thing as "Islamophobia," then the structure on which you have made your stand will totter and all your aspirations will fail. If you try to make a stand based on the idea that settlement construction rather than the intransigence of the Palestinians to the existence of a Jewish state is what is holding up a peace deal, then facts will keep on intruding.' Douglas Murray (31 December 2016)https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9685/britain-little-lies

BDS is Antisemitic

Click image to learn why

The Bigotry & Immorality of BDS

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'Islamophobia does NOT come from the same wellspring of hatred as antisemitism. Antisemitism is a true prejudice because the hatred and demonisation it promotes derive entirely from lies and a repudiation of rationality itself. Islamophobia is a false allegation of prejudice which is deployed to silence rational criticism based on actual facts about attitudes and practices within the Islamic world. [L]ethally compromised even-handedness is to misunderstand, and thus minimise, antisemitic attitudes and behaviour while shutting down legitimate and necessary discussion of the threat from the Islamic world – even to demonise as “Islamophobic” anyone who draws attention to the extent and consequences of Muslim antisemitism.' Melanie Phillips (14 December 2016)

"Selling a house to a Jew is a betrayal of Allah"

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Maps of Mendacity & Mischief

Click image to learn why

These misleading maps were deliberately prepared to date from 1946 – intentionally papering over the momentous events that had occurred between 1917 and 1945. Attempts to unravel binding precepts of international law established between 1917 and 1945 – and failing to insist on their being upheld and enforced – has a lot to do with the sorry situation the world finds itself in today.David Singer (2016)

How They Twist the Truth!

Click image for more on the lies

Jews have re-assumed the role of the canary in the mine and are the first to be targeted, but the world would face the same threat if Jews did not exist. Israel has been at the front lines confronting Islamic extremism but has received scant support... For Jews, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. The virulence of the antisemitic hatred closing in on Jews in Europe (and elsewhere) is horrifying... Europe is today facing a crisis as serious as the confrontation with Nazism. If Western leaders continue behaving like Chamberlain and fail to stand up to this global threat, it could usher in a new Dark Age in which the Judeo-Christian culture is subsumed by primitive barbarism. The writing is on the wall Isi Leibler (12 January 2015)

Expose The Lies!

There is a war of lies and deceit on the internet generating unbelievable hate by denigrating and delegitimising the legal rights conferred on the Jewish people by the League of Nations in 1922 and the United Nations in 1945. The idea that there are two narratives on the Arab-Jewish conflict is rubbish. There is only one – the factual truth that details the return of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient biblical, ancestral and historic homeland after 3500 years of dispersion with the unanimous endorsement of the nation states then comprising the League of Nations.... Generals can’t fight a war without soldiers. Jews around the world need to join the fight or vacate the internet to the Jew-haters and their lies that repeated often enough eventually become accepted as truth.David Singer (2016)

Exposing Lies

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The "Apartheid" Slur

The division of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into three separate areas “A”, “B” and “C” was agreed on by Israel and the PLO pursuant to the Oslo Accords.95% of the West Bank Arabs live in Areas A and B and their daily lives are under the total administration and control of the PLO since the Palestinian Authority was disbanded by Abbas in January 2013. The PLO has total security control in A and shares security control in B with Israel. Israel has total administrative and security control in C.Israel is entitled to and will continue to take responsibility for the security of Jews living in the West Bank.Jews were given the legal right to settle in the West Bank under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter. They did so for decades until they were driven out in 1947 and not able to return there until 1967.There are Arab roads only in the West Bank that Jews are not allowed to use. Jews are also forbidden from entering Area “A”. Selling land to Jews is forbidden by the PLO under pain of death. The PLO runs the daily lives of 95% of the West Bank Arabs and Hamas runs the daily lives of 100% of the Gazan Arabs. They have been under occupation – and subjugation – by these two evil groups for the last ten years and given no say in their future or any opportunity to elect others to lead them following the disastrous political decisions of their leaders over the past ten years. Hamas and the PLO do not accept the continued existence of a Jewish State and call for its disappearance. The narratives did not begin in 1948 – they began in about 1917. How do you make peace with an enemy that has been obsessed with not recognising any Jewish national rights in former Palestine for the last 100 years?David Singer (2016)

Telling the Truth

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The Jews of the Holy Land ... are surrounded by hostile states 650 times their territory and sixty times their population. Yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived. When, during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightly awarded the George Cross for bravery. Today, Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.Andrew Roberts (historian)

A voice of courage & reason

He knows, y'know

An Aussie demo against BDS

On the left, black people are usually allowed to define what’s racism; women can define sexism; Muslims are trusted to define Islamophobia. But when Jews call out something as antisemitic, leftist non-Jews feel curiously entitled to tell Jews they’re wrong, that they are exaggerating or lying or using it as a decoy tactic – and to then treat them to a long lecture on what anti-Jewish racism really is. Jonathan Freedland (The Guardian, 29 April 2016)

An awkward fact for some!

Socialist thought was tainted from its very origins with the heavy baggage of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Robert Wistrich, From Ambivalence to Betrayal:The Left, the Jews, and Israel (2012)

BDS hypocrisy!

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Israel is understandably obsessed with security, but its greatest security lies ultimately not in the Israeli Defence Forces, but in political warfare.... Most of the world is not deeply interested in what happens in Israel, and probably does not want to be deluged with legalistic defences of particular actions. What it wants is a clear, calm, repeated case. It is a case – aimed more at public opinion than at foreign ministries – about freedom, democracy, a Western way of life and the need for the whole of the free world to fight terrorism. Sometimes you hear Israelis say: “It doesn’t matter what we say. The whole world is against us.” You can see why they say it, for they are indeed unfairly treated. But when they say it, they are uttering a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they won’t say what needs saying, no one else will say it for them. Charles Moore (2010)

Once again the armies of the Arab nations are coordinating their military efforts to destroy Israel - whatever they say about wishing merely to regain the lost territories.... [I]f the present Arab offensive had been launched at the pre-1967 frontiers, then the Israelis would indeed have been fighting to avoid annihilation. It seems now that the Israelis were right to maintain the ceasefire lines gained in 1967, and that to do so is the only guarantee of their continued safety.Alan Sillitoe (The Times, 11 October 1973)

A nuclear Iran threatens our existence

Iran and ISIS are competing for the crown of militant Islam... In this deadly game of thrones, there’s no place for America or for Israel, no place for Christians, Jews or Muslims who don’t share the Islamist medieval creed, no rights for women, no freedom for anyone... [T]he greatest danger facing our world is the marriage of militant Islam with nuclear weapons. To defeat ISIS and let Iran get nuclear weapons would be to win the battle, but lose the war. We can’t let that happen...[T]he days when the Jewish people remained passive in the face of genocidal enemies, those days are over. We are no longer scattered among the nations, powerless to defend ourselves. We restored our sovereignty in our ancient home. And the soldiers who defend our home have boundless courage. For the first time in 100 generations, we, the Jewish people, can defend ourselves....Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand. But ... I know that America stands with Israel... You stand with Israel, because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history’s horrors. Bibi Netanyahu (12 Adar 5775; 3 March 2015)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions, of people, and there is no refugee problem.... [N]o one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.... Other nations - when they are defeated - survive and recover, but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.... [A]s it goes with Israel, so it will go with all of us. Should Israel perish the holocaust will be upon us.Eric Hoffer (1968)

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אם תרצו , אין זו אגדה

Most of the present Arab countries were given their freedom after the 1914-18 War, or after the 1939-45 War.... Yet to listen to Arab spokesmen one might think that they had been cheated ... because they have not also got Israel. Israel is only .2 per cent of the land where Arab States have been established. Surely no fair-minded man can begrudge the Jews their own promised land when it is remembered that for every 2 acres that went to make up Israel, 1,000 acres became Arab.... Why is there an Arab refugee problem? The oil-rich countries have the money. There is no shortage of land, and the Israelis have the technical knowledge to show how it could be developed and made fertile. Bring those things together and the problem could be solved. 3rd Earl of Balfour (1968)

January 7, 2015 has already its place in the history of infamy, but also will be the date when the defenders of freedom and democracy will rise and pay tribute to those who died for their freedom and ours. Therefore, we must not forget on which side we are and who are our allies in the defense of the West and its values. Whether we admit it or not, the West is at war with an enemy who will not stop to destroy us...The State of Israel boasts a commandment that, in one of the darkest hours in the fight for liberty Winston Churchill taught: "Never give up". Israel has proven to be a key ally in the fight against Islamism and also an example of how a liberal democracy can resist the jihadist stake and thrive as a Western nation ... Not only France but also all the West should look to Israel to defeat Islamism...friendsofisraelinitiative.org

[I]t’s impossible to believe that an active antisemite wouldn’t – if only opportunistically – seek out somewhere to nestle in the manifold pleats of Israel-bashing, whether in generally diffuse anti-Zionism, or in more specific Boycott and Divestment Campaigns, Israeli Apartheid Weeks, End the Occupation movements and the like....[T]ell me that not a single Jew-hater finds the activity congenial, that criticising Israel can “never” be an expression of Jew-hating, not even when it takes the form of accusing Israeli soldiers of harvesting organs...Howard Jacobson (The Independent, 27 May 2013)

What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over 2000 years in the Arab lands ...? Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride ... to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Chaim Herzog (6 Kislev 5736; 10 November 1975)

I stand with Israel, I stand with the Jews.... I defend their right to exist, to defend themselves, to not let themselves be exterminated a second time. And, disgusted by the antisemitism of many Europeans ... I am shamed by this shame that dishonours my country and Europe.Oriana Fallaci

For Western countries to side with those who question Israel's legitimacy, for them to play games in international bodies with Israel's vital security issues, for them to appease those who oppose Western values, rather than robustly to stand up in defence of those values, is not only a grave moral mistake, but a strategic error of the first magnitude. Israel is a fundamental part of the West. The West is what it is thanks to its Judeo-Christian roots. If the Jewish element of those roots is lost and Israel is lost, then we are lost too. Jose Maria Aznar

Israel is, for us, a normal and a special country. A normal country, because it is just like any other democracy. A special country, because the Jewish culture, which eventually became the Judeo-Christian culture of the dignity of man, is the conceptual foundation of liberalism and democracy. This is why attacking Israel is tantamount to attacking Europe and the West. This is also why disputing Israel's legitimacy and its right to existence means questioning democracy. And this is why we are Friends of Israel. By defending Israel, we are defending ourselves.Marcello Pera

Israel ... is beset today by a unique combination of threats. It must defend its people from attack while defending its very right to exist. No other nation in the world faces this dual challenge. To deny Israel's right to confront some of the world's most vicious terrorist groups in order to ensure the safety of its citizens is to corrode international norms from within ... The assault on Israel is one part of a more general assault on the West, on democracy, and on the moral and cultural heritage that grew from the fruitful interaction of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome ... Should these efforts succeed, similar efforts will certainly be turned against other western democracies.George Weigel

Apart from America itself, Israel still stands as the world's brightest model of national self-liberation based on ideals of individual responsibility and human freedom. Israel's ability to withstand Arab attempts to destroy it in one of the longest and most lop-sided wars ever fought serves as an indelible testimony to the strength of democratic culture.... We know from the past that the West paid dearly for ignoring Hitler's war against the Jews. One can only hope it will not pay as dearly for having ignored or underestimated for so long the Arab war against Israel and the Jews. Ruth Wisse

The choice before us is not between victory and defeat, but between victory and annihilation. We therefore have not the slightest intention of allowing the re-creation of the conditions of vulnerability in which we found ourselves, abandoned and alone, in the summer of 1967. Diplomat Michael Comay (1970)

I am duty-bound to defend freedom, culture, peaceful coexistence, the civic education of children, and all the principles that the Tablets of the Law have rendered universal. Principles which Islamic fundamentalism systematically destroys. This means that, since I am a Gentile, a journalist and a leftist, I have a triple moral commitment to Israel. Because, if Israel were to be vanquished, modernity, culture and freedom would also be crushed. Even though the world has failed to wake up to this fact, Israel's struggle is the world's struggle. Pilar Rahola

About Me

I'm a writer/researcher, with many academic books and articles under my own name. Daphne Anson is my blogging alias. Combining the names of two ships, it's a moniker of special significance to me - I'm a naval history buff. I use an alias owing to a perceived need to keep my blogging and professional identities separate. An Aussie, I've long been interested in
politics and foreign affairs, having studied International Relations in the USA and Britain for my first degree, and I also hold a doctorate. I began blogging in response to the exponential rise in antisemitism and hostility to Israel in the wake of the Mavi Marmara affair.
Another reason I use an alias: http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2015/08/alias-two-ships-daphne-anson.html

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The spiritual awakening which Jews experienced almost without exception last June must not be allowed to become a sealed and finished episode.... Support must be rallied among men of goodwill and their governments if we are to reach that secure and just peace in the attainment of which Israel has never ceased to believe. President Zalman Shazar (1968)

Our judicial system is one of the best in the whole world. Our democracy is the only one in the Middle East.... Just imagine, what would have happened if the Arabs had, like us, accepted the Partition resolution? There would be a Palestinian State living side by side in peace, security, and, I can add, prosperity with the State of Israel, 62 years later. [C]ome to Israel, and realize how small Israel is and what a wonderful place it is. Diplomat Gabriella Shalev (2010)

Israel's Arab citizens are the only Arabs in the Middle East who enjoy genuine civic and religious rights. Religious freedom is protected in Israel as nowhere else, tragically, in the Middle East. And civil rights, of course, there's a supreme court judge who is an Arab, ministers including in my government who are Arabs, Druze, and members of parliament who are Arabs and so on. I would like to see more involvement of Arabs in civil life.Bibi Netanyahu on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show (5 Nov. 2017)